Ignorance Can Be a Lethal Disease

It has the uniquely horrible ability to inflict masses of people and blind them from seeing any potential beauty or art.

This unfortunate condition inevitably inhibits any person from acceptance of other cultures or other beliefs. Ignorance is not bliss – it is destructive.

On Friday night, I received word of an attack committed against the parents of a friend of mine. Initially in disbelief, I learned that my friend Trisha Ahmed’s father, Avijit Roy, had visited Bangladesh to attend a book fair. He was a blogger and writer of secularism who had been inspiring a plethora of freethinkers around the world for years.

Roy’s life work garnered the attention of Islamic extremists in Bangladesh who waited for he and his wife, Rafida Bonya Ahmed, after the book fair. It was then that these machete-wielding extremists murdered my friend’s dad and wounded her mother.

These people were so riddled with misunderstanding; their hatred was fueled by nothing less than pure, unadulterated ignorance.

Roy was not unaware of the response people like these extremists had to his writing, yet he was not discouraged, and his passion remained unwavering. Unaffected by their ignorance, Roy continued his work even when he received death threats, pursuing what he was passionate for. It is because of this that Avijit Roy was forced to give his life – for never concealing or abandoning his beliefs.

The radical assailants who murdered Trisha’s dad have come forward, yet have not been prosecuted. This disconnect in the justice system of Bangladesh would hardly even be fathomable in the United States and many other Western nations.

Our society recognizes injustices such as the manslaughter of Roy’s and we treat such atrocities accordingly.

However, without global recognition of the killing of Avijit Roy, it is likely that his death is never brought to trial and his murderers go unpunished, which cannot be ignored by the international community. Regrettably, the death of my friend’s dad is simply one example of countless injustices that infect our world – don’t let the disease spread.

If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything. Share the story. Reduce the ignorance.